Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, a method for controlling the same, and a non-transitory computer-readable medium. In particular, the present invention relates to a technique by which a function of an information processing apparatus is executed by device cooperation between the information processing apparatus and a mobile terminal that has a non-contact wireless communication function.
Description of the Related Art
Recently, a technique known as NFC (Near Field Communication), which is a non-contact wireless communication means, has rapidly come into wide use due to being loaded on mobile terminals such as smartphones and tablet PCs. Three functions are defined in the specification of NFC. The first function is a reader/writer function by which reading/writing of information from/to an RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) tag or an NFC tag that has been conventionally used can be performed. The second function is a card emulation function by which operations that are equivalent to an NFC tag that can be read by a reader/writer serving as a communication partner can be performed. The third function is a peer-to-peer function by which various information can be transmitted and received via NFC. A mobile terminal on which the NFC function is loaded is equipped with a reader/writer, and information can be read from or written to an NFC tag by utilizing the reader/writer.
Also, recently, mobile terminals have included not only NFC but also various near field wireless communication means such as Wi-Fi (registered trademark), Bluetooth (registered trademark), and the like. Therefore, device cooperation according to which functions are utilized among electronic devices so as to find new values has been widely used. There is a technique known as “handover” in which when such near field wireless communication means are used, pairing or authentication between devices is performed using NFC, and the actual communication is handed over to Wi-Fi (registered trademark) or Bluetooth (registered trademark). With handover, the initial setting that is required to start near field wireless communication can be automatically performed by merely holding a reader/writer equipped device over an NFC tag to which information that is required for near field wireless communication such as Wi-Fi (registered trademark) or Bluetooth (registered trademark) has been written in advance. For example, in the case of Wi-Fi connection, an SSID (Service Set Identifier) and a security key of an access point are written in advance to an NFC tag of a device that is to be cooperated with.
However, there is known to be a technique in which in the case where information such as a security key has been written to the NFC tag, for example, when the tag cannot receive data storage signals transmitted from a reader/writer, the information in the NFC tag is deleted in the interest of improving security. (For example, see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2010-186387)
However, in prior art, if the interval at which checking of whether or not an NFC tag has received a data storage signal is performed is set to a long interval, such as approximately several minutes, there is a possibility that the information in the NFC tag will not be deleted and will remain for a while after the NFC tag becomes unable to receive the data storage signal. Therefore, there is a possibility that another user will read the information before the information in the NFC tag is deleted, whereby the information will unintentionally leak out. Therefore, it is necessary to delete the information immediately after the information in the NFC tag has been read. In order to detect that the information in the NFC tag has been read, it is conceivable to use a method by which an interrupt signal generated by a tag IC is detected when the information is read. However, there are issues in that if interrupt signals are always generated by the tag IC when the information is read, interrupt processing is executed every time the information is read, and thus other devices that are included in the information processing apparatus are prevented from operating.
The present invention has been made in view of the above-described issues, and makes it possible to reliably delete information that has been written to an NFC tag after the information included in the NFC tag is read by a reader/writer and before the information is read by another user, without preventing other devices from operating.